India does it!It is odd that while the announcement of a satellite launch generates tremendous interest, the successful test firing of an indigenously developed powerful cryogenic engine on Saturday has not been greeted with similar jubilation.

Signals from HurriyatThe 23-party conglomerate in Kashmir, the Hurriyat Conference, has been talking in different languages for some time, showing a confused state of mind on the question of participating in the September Assembly elections in the state.

Economics of healthMedical news seldom gets the media and public attention it deserves in this politics-crazy country. That is why when Union Health Minister C.P. Thakur announced in Tamil Nadu on Saturday that the country would soon have a new health policy and a separate policy on AIDS and blood transfusion not many took notice.

Lessons from Enron’s collapseThe way out of the Dabhol messPraful Bidwai
It is not in India, but in Pakistan, that the United States’ ambassador is often called the “Viceroy”, a figure far more powerful than any native citizen or subject. In India, too, we may soon have to use that term at least half-jokingly to convey the imperious tone of Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill’s pronouncements.

MIDDLE

Election times, wonderful timesRajesh Jogpal
Like Holi and Diwali, election time is here once again. It comes with a bang greater than that of Pokhran as it stops everything that goes on. No longer are the development schemes launched, fresh grants released, fresh appointments made and on top of it no postings and transfers made without Election Commission’s “Ashirwad”or “Shraap”.

REALPOLITIK

Globalisation under challengeP. Raman
Last week the American continent was host to two parallel global conferences. The World Economic Forum funded by the global business met in New York and the two-year-old World Social Forum down south in Brazil’s Porto Alegre. The participation and the level of deliberations were equally impressive at both places. But the comparison just ends there.

Universal Hepatitis B vaccination not cost-effectiveUniversal Hepatitis B vaccination is not cost-effective in India, says a study from the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies.
The budget requirement for this alone exceeds that for immunisation of all other diseases under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation put together, the report from
NISTADS, an institute under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, said.

It is odd that while the announcement of a satellite launch generates tremendous interest, the successful test firing of an indigenously developed powerful cryogenic engine on Saturday has not been greeted with similar jubilation. The fact of the matter is that the latter marks the crossing of an equally important milestone. The achievement becomes all the more creditworthy since that this was the first “full test” after a similar test in mid-February, 2000, had to be prematurely aborted. India has now entered an elite club of five with this liquid-fueled engine. The USA made determined efforts in 1994 to force Russia to cancel its contract for an initial supply of the engines to this country, but did not succeed. However, it did manage to stop technology transfer and training. That was a setback indeed as far as the timeframe was concerned, but it has proved to be a blessing in disguise. Indian scientists managed to prise open the engines and put them together locally without any training or technical knowhow. Considering the complexity involved, it is a major victory that will facilitate the launch of satellites in geostationary orbits 36,000 km above the earth. Cryogenics is the science of keeping propellants as liquids in the extreme cold of deep space, at temperatures as low as minus 253 degrees C. The success will make the launches cost-effective and also impart perfection to the flight of space vehicles.

There has been a seachange in the political situation since the time when the USA turned the screws on India. Today, it may not be as harsh on Russia for transferring the technology to India. In fact, it may not even mind if some US companies go ahead with the lucrative deal. But the fabrication of the engine within the country is a tremendous morale booster. That a country, which is struggling to keep a large percentage of its population above the poverty line, can at the same time have such cutting-edge skills is thrilling. It should spur the whole nation to have confidence in itself and prepare itself to scale greater heights. In any case, depending on foreign technology is a risky venture. Sanctions may be off for now, but it may not take much to switch them on again in a unipolar world. Just as a country has to fight its own battles, it also has to fend for itself, whether it is in the field of medicine or space.

The 23-party conglomerate in Kashmir, the Hurriyat Conference, has been talking in different languages for some time, showing a confused state of mind on the question of participating in the September Assembly elections in the state. The latest indication is that the Hurriyat is inclined to participate in the polls, but wants the matter to be discussed with a representative of the Union Government not lower in rank than that of Planning Commission Vice-Chairman K.C. Pant. In the absence of such a personality, the Centre's interlocutor should be "anyone having direct access to the Prime Minister". The Hurriyat leadership feels that former Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah, who has been assigned the job by the Centre, does not belong to that category. The point raised is without substance if it is only the question of participating in elections. If the Hurriyat doubts the capacity of the Election Commission to hold a free and fair poll, it should remove the misgiving from its mind as the constitutionally created body has been successfully performing its role with admirable results. Much of the credit goes to the commission for India's thriving democracy today. If the Hurriyat has anything to discuss relating to the autonomy demand, as raised by the National Conference (NC) in the past, it can do so even with Mr Habibullah. After all, the central government has given him the responsibility only because it has confidence in him. The accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India is non-negotiable, and the Hurriyat leadership should have no doubt about it. If it wants the Centre to ensure its victory in the battle of the ballot by making the NC, the principal challenger to the Hurriyat claim of representing a "broader spectrum of the people of Jammu and Kashmir", field some weak candidates, this is not done in a true democracy. Moreover, the NC leader, Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, has declared that his party will go by the "will of the people for free and fair polls". Perhaps, he has been sounded by New Delhi to help it by conceding a majority of seats to the Hurriyat, but Dr Abdullah is unwilling.

The Centre, it seems, has reached the conclusion that once the Hurriyat becomes part of the ruling dispensation in Srinagar, it will be easier to defuse the Kashmir crisis. The idea may be worth trying. The Centre should do everything possible to facilitate the Hurriyat participation in the democratic process to form a new government. But the Hurriyat too should have confidence in its capacity to prove that the majority of the Kashmiris are with it, as the conglomerate claims. However, it must bear in mind that no party can be 100 per cent sure of securing a majority. This is the beauty of the democratic system. Mature and genuine political formations are not scared of facing such a prospect. In any case, participating in elections is the most honourable option for the Hurriyat. In the post-September 11 global scenario, any organisation thinking of terrorist tactics for espousing a cause, howsoever holy that may be, is bound to meet its Waterloo.

Medical news seldom gets the media and public attention it deserves in this politics-crazy country. That is why when Union Health Minister C.P. Thakur announced in Tamil Nadu on Saturday that the country would soon have a new health policy and a separate policy on AIDS and blood transfusion not many took notice. With four million AIDS/HIV cases, the country ranks second in the world after South Africa in the number of AIDS sufferers. Apart from AIDS, the other major causes of avoidable deaths are hepatitis B, malaria, tuberculosis, childhood infectious diseases, maternal and pre-natal conditions and micronutrient deficiencies. India spends more on AIDS (largely because of easy aid available from global agencies) and hepatitis B (a new pilot project to provide free vaccination on the polio project pattern is under way) than on controlling other diseases which require much lower funds. A notable part of the new policy will be central help available to states in setting up trauma care centres (400, to start with) along national highways to provide timely medicare to accident victims. To access medical information available globally on the Internet, the government plans to provide Net links to 130 medical colleges in the country. This will boost medical research.

To realise these benefits, the governments (both in the states and the one at the Centre) need to spend more on health. The economic benefits of a healthy and disease-free society are not adequately realised. Consider the World Health Organisation’s latest report titled “Macroeconomics and Health: Investing in Health for Economic Development”, which has called upon the poor countries as also the donor nations to scale up investments in health to save about eight million lives a year. An increased health investment of $66 billion a year above the current spending, says the report, will yield gains worth about $360 billion. This exercise should be accompanied by an intensified programme of family planning. With a health cover within reach, healthier, even if impoverished, families will have fewer children. They can then spend more on the education and wellbeing of their children which ultimately would translate into higher incomes and better economic growth. To make this a reality the country needs an awakened political leadership, a responsive bureaucracy and an active involvement of the medical community and the general public.

Lessons from Enron’s collapseThe way out of the Dabhol messPraful Bidwai

It is not in India, but in Pakistan, that the United States’ ambassador is often called the “Viceroy”, a figure far more powerful than any native citizen or subject. In India, too, we may soon have to use that term at least half-jokingly to convey the imperious tone of Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill’s pronouncements. On January 28 Mr Blackwill bluntly told businessmen that if India’s reform “rabbit” was not to become a “turtle”, and then “a rock”, this country must open itself up to foreign goods and investment. The key, he said, lies in resolving the Dabhol project dispute with the US corporation, Enron.

Mr Blackwill said the dispute over Dabhol — our most spectacularly controversial power project — “feeds a chronic perception among the overseas investing community that India may not be ready yet for big-time international investment ... the sanctity of contract may now be in doubt here, a concern that can spell death to potential investors.” The message is unambiguous and crude: don’t punish or expropriate Enron, however crooked it might have been; don’t alter the power purchase agreement (PPA) between Enron-sponsored Dabhol Power Co (DPC) and the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB). Continue with the deal, however, ruinous it might be to the public — or you’ll get no foreign investment, you’ll become a Myanmar (Burma), you’ll perish...

It is incredible that Mr Blackwill should be saying this just when the Enron mega-scandal has engulfed the USA, and bigwigs from President George Bush, former President Bill Clinton, and Vice-President Dick Cheney downwards are in the dock for their links with this corporate giant. Mr Blackwill focused his doomsday scenario on Enron although he knows future FDI flows are not dependent on that company’s activity, and when the “sanctity of contract” idea makes little sense in Enron’s context.

Perhaps, Mr Blackwill is only following in the footsteps of his less abrasive predecessor, Mr Frank Wisner, who in the mid-1990s lobbied openly, energetically and “patriotically” for Dabhol — only to join Enron’s board of directors on retirement. Perhaps, he was only emulating the example set by the Clinton Administration which too had pushed foreign governments to “honour” Enron’s contracts. Mr Clinton’s Energy Secretary in June, 1995, publicly warned India: “Failure to honour the agreements between the project partners and the various Indian governments will jeopardise not only the Dabhol project but also most, if not all, of the other private power projects proposed for international financing.”

Mr Blackwill was, perhaps, only gratifyingly recalling the debt the Bush campaign owes Enron. Mr Kenneth Lay, earlier “Kenny Boy” in the White House, was a Republican “pioneer” who donated $ 113,800 to Mr Bush. Mr Lay has been central to the evolution of the Right-wing, pro-corporate, anti-environment Bush-Cheney energy policy. Mr Blackwill may have only followed the example of former US Ambassador to Pakistan Robert Oakley, who in 1996-98 strongly pleaded Unocal’s case to the Taliban, and vice versa.

Whatever Mr Blackwill’s role-model, he is clearly mistaken in suggesting that Enron is a clean, normal company, dealings with which carry “sanctity”. Enron exemplifies all that is sleazy, greedy and unethical in corporate governance and in the unholy nexus between powerful multinationals, governments and the media. Enron is history’s worst case of self-inflicted corporate bankruptcy. It is a company that flourished on the deregulation of the energy sector, which bribed and lobbied its way to reach dizzying heights, which cooked its books to pump up its image, but which yet failed disastrously, taking down employees, shareholders and customers with it. Enron wasn’t just No. 7 in the Fortune-500 list, with a turnover equalling almost a third of India’s GDP. It became a global “New Economy” icon; its managers were glorified as “magicians of the free-market age”, no less.

In the USA Enron has now become a transitive verb, meaning swindle on a large scale (“No, 1 won’t Enron you”), a household name for corporate criminality, a potential 21st century Watergate, which could change Corporate America, even Political America, forever. MIT economist and commentator Paul Krugman says: “Enron, not September 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in US society.” The scandal has forced Americans to change the way they think about themselves, not others, not Islam, not Wahhabism, not Afghanistan.

So much has been written about Enron’s unethical methods — its doctored balance-sheets (exaggerating profits by $ one billon), reckless speculative trading, collusion with its auditors, “befriending” of politicians and the madia (with payments of $ 50,000 for a single speech) — that it is unnecessary to recapitulate that tangled web of lies and filthy politics. Enron was both a beneficiary of the US “free-market” policy of energy deregulation under Mr Clinton, and a major influence in the further corruption or “development” of that policy under Mr Cheney (himself a former chairman of oil industry giant Hallibuton, and an unashamed “free-market” right-winger). It has made “donations” to 70 per cent of all Congressional energy committee members.

Under Enron’s pressure, the US National Security Council, says The Washington Post, was turned into a “concierge service” fixing its executives’ appointments with Mr Brajesh Mishra. Enron brought enormous influence to bear on successive US administrations, and through them on Indian politicians, in respect of the Dabhol project, which was signed in 1993, but which the BJP-Shiv Sena in Maharashtra had threatened “to drown in the Arabian Sea” until 1995. So hectic was Enron’s lobbying that the White House chief of staff got written Presidential orders to promote Dabhol. He worked with Mr Wisner to “monitor” the project negotiations. The project was not only signed under this “monitoring”, its size was tripled!

Of pivotal importance here were four things: a mid-1995 meeting between Mr Bal Thackeray and Ms Rebecca Mark; Enron’s self-confessed expenditure of $ 20 million (Rs 95 crore) in “educating Indians; a highly improper “clearance” to the project from Finance Secretary Montek Singh Ahluwalia (violating statutory procedures under the Electricity Supply Act), and “sovereign” counter-guarantee from the 13-day Vajpayee government in 1996. This was the only executive decision taken by that Cabinet, during a five-minute meeting on May 27. Without these moves, the power purchase agreement wouldn’t have been approved, India’s financial institutions wouldn’t have lent it Rs 6,000 crore, and the MSEB wouldn’t have been forced to buy 15 per cent of the DPC’s equity.

The whole cost-inflated project was pushed through without competitive bidding, in breach of market principles. The MSEB, forced to pay the DPC a horrendously high return of 31 to 52 per cent, went into the red. Guaranteeing the DPC a 90 per cent plant-load factor meant backing down much cheaper hydro-electricity generation. Consuming industry started resisting high payments. Finally, six months ago the MSEB was forced to stop buying the DPC’s power.

The Maharashtra-appointed Madhav Godbole committee has made many proposals to resolve the imbroglio, but the DPC doesn’t cooperate. Enron invokes a clause in the PPA that shields the DPC from Indian jurisdiction and demands overseas arbitration. The Maharashtra government signed a humiliating agreement in 1996 forswearing its own right to legal remedies in Indian courts. It restrained itself from “commencing or prosecuting or continuing or taking any steps or otherwise participating in any court or tribunal in India or in any court in any other jurisdiction” in respect of disputes with the DPC.

This runs totally contrary to Indian law. The pertinent question is not the “sanctity” of the Enron PPA, but how to replace that obnoxious deal with a reasonable contract. This cannot be done by transferring Enron’s 65 per cent stake in the DPC (or along with General Electric and Bechtel’s 10 per cent each) to the highest bidder. The PPA is bad in law, violative of sound economic principles, and steeped in fraud. It must be scrapped under Section 23 of the Indian Contracts Act, 1872, which annuls all contracts that violate “morality or public policy”. True, a contract is a “violuntary” commercial transaction. But that doesn’t mean it can be obnoxious or offensive. “A” can’t enter into a valid contract with “B” for, say, being brutally beaten up periodically in return for a certain sum. In any case, national laws override commercial contracts.

The way out of the Dabhol mess lies in placing the DPC’s assets in a special-purpose vehicle /agency, evaluating them accurately, and then transferring them to the MSEB at their true value while fairly compensating Enron. Such compensation must naturally exclude padded-up costs, rigged-up electricity prices, and PPA-caused past losses. This is a precondition for undoing the damage inflicted by Enron. We need a full-fledged parliamentary enquiry into how the deal came to be made, and who took the critical decisions, and when.

India abjectly capitulated to the multinational Union Carbide in the Bhopal gas disaster which killed 12,000 innocent people. Carbide got away by paying a sum barely double its insurance cover. However, shamefully, its Indian subsidiary’s ex-chairman Keshub Mahindra has now been honoured with a Padma Bhushan. The government is doing nothing to apply India’s own laws to former Carbide chairman Warren Anderson. This terrible blunder must not be repeated in respect of Enron — if we have dignity and respect for our own people.

Like Holi and Diwali, election time is here once again. It comes with a bang greater than that of Pokhran as it stops everything that goes on. No longer are the development schemes launched, fresh grants released, fresh appointments made and on top of it no postings and transfers made without Election Commission’s “Ashirwad”or “Shraap”.

Now is the time for “Goddess Mahalakshmi” to bestow financial boon on all. A “leader” by “allotting ticket” raises the “poonji” for “his hung future”, and for a candidate winning the seat will be the best investment he’ll make. No stones are left unturned to reap the rich harvest that awaits him. Not even the most lucrative amnesty scheme of the income tax department can bring out the black money to this huge magnitude.

However, the ceiling imposed on election expenditure by the Election Commission should be waived in the interest of the country’s economy. The money gets spent within the country and there’s no “hawala”. Employment to lakhs of people — the rickshaw puller, the painter, the printing press owner, the autorikshaw driver, the taxi driver, the tent house owner, the tea vendors, the wine contractor, the illicit arms dealers, and even religious leaders, goons, pehalwans and actors — gets generated better than through employment assurance scheme or any other scheme of the government. This festive time is wished again and again by media and aviation persons.

Elections are a great leveller. An officer can now successfully keep himself away from PM/CMs/ministers. It make the all-mighty bureaucracy more powerful, as the Vajra of MCC (model code of conduct)” is now available to them to tackle unfriendly politicians.

Political parties’ tendency to allot tickets to criminals needs to be praised. This Gandhian philosophy of hating the crime but not the criminal is religiously followed by all. For them elections can reform even the most hardened criminal whom no system of correctional administration can ever reform in such an effective manner. Once an MP or MLA you attain “moksha” and all your sins are washed away, and now there is no need to meditate or to bathe in the Ganges.

Now is the time for the politicians to become your bosom pals. They get a brain wave of patriotism. Even the performing arts of our leaders are at the Olympic level. All contemporary and even innovative methods like digging up cricket pitches, attacking art galleries, calling leaders Lewinsky or Liz Taylor, dressing up and calling opponents Osama bin Laden are employed to beg, to snatch, to woo or to seduce the voters. Suddenly, the leaders of all political parties become paragens of virtue.

The time for a casteless and egalitarian society, and partyless democracy as envisaged by JP has come today as there are no issues, no ideological differences and every party wants power, bringing a complete unanimity among all political parties.

Last week the American continent was host to two parallel global conferences. The World Economic Forum funded by the global business met in New York and the two-year-old World Social Forum down south in Brazil’s Porto Alegre. The participation and the level of deliberations were equally impressive at both places. But the comparison just ends there.

While the WEF meet was marked by fierce protests by the anti-globalisation crowds and unusually tight security all over, the other conclave was accompanied by a colourful rally of half a lakh people seeking an end of exploitation and demanding jobs to the “victims of corporate greed”. The latter also came out with a set of declarations highlighting an “alternative economic thought” and laying more stress on social justice and environmental preservation. It was preceded by nearly a hundred documented seminars and 650 workshops by the representatives of a thousand organisations from around the world.

Thanks to near total blackout by the world media, we know very little about the agenda set by the WSF. But the “parallel thought” loudly put forth by the WSF had its echo at the rich man’s show in New York. Even the World Bank chief asked the rich to dole out if only “for self-interest” aid to the poor countries “as an insurance against future terrorism”. Similar has been the thrust of the IMF chief who wanted the rich to open up their market more for the developing countries. Many others expressed scepticism about the ill-effects of the present kind of globalisation.

The WSF has been the first major attempt at the international level to present an organised world alternative to the business-commanded globalisation. Its limitations — of being an assorted group of public men and NGOs — have also been its strength. No government or political group dares to give it an overt support for fear of being dubbed “rouge”. However, to avert a cold war-like confrontation, the WSF itself spurned the request from Fidel Castro and the Belgian Prime Minister to attend the Porto Alegre meet.

For them, it is more of a moral and ideological fight for social justice and equality of opportunity and against the subjugation of the world by a few MNCs and their patron states. The voluminous documents produced by this alternative centre bring out many unpleasant facts. The imports barriers and agricultural subsidies by the developed nations, they say, cost the developing ones much more than the $50 billion annual foreign aid they received. Its leaders claim unsolicited support from trade unions and large sections who lose jobs.

However, the real challenge to globalisation comes from within. A decade into it in its full form, cracks have appeared in its edifice. The very soundness of many of its premises are being questioned the world over. This is apart from the sharp clash of interests between the developed and developing countries and the subtle manipulations at fora like the WTO. Even if one dismisses them as resolvable differences within the system, many of the myths attacked to the new global gods are getting exploded.

The grim tale of Enron’s rise and fall, the sudden miseries befallen on Argentina due to the forced economic reform and globalisation, the continuing misuse of domestic MNC’s for espionage and sabotage in host countries and the arms-twisting on the free trade rules to squeeze the weaker countries — all these are symptoms of a deep malaise. Apparently, those who have set the rules are themselves violating them when it suits them. For instance, India has clear advantages on steel, thanks to the much maligned Nehruvian model. The US obstructions to our steel exports reveal the double standards on free trade.

Under the new media order, we are denied the true story of the Argentine tragedy and its real implications on others like India. Hardly two years ago, Argentina was being touted as a model of new economic regime, and was being heralded as a success story of macro-economic stability. Like us now, it had reduced inflation to almost nil level. Its structural reform was lauded and its minister as an economic wizard. But when the expected results failed to show up, there were more advice to enforce still higher doses of reform — as we are now being told — until it all finally collapsed.

We are now being told to do exactly what had failed to click in the model country. The only exception was the convertability of rupee which foreign experts had dropped after the collapse of the Asian Tigers. In Argentina, free facilities to foreign investment for a decade did not improve its industrial growth in any measure. The FDI was confined to primary production like mining, oil and gas, and of course automobile. The privatisation programme had little effect on industrial production except helping the government fill the budgetary gap. On the other, it led to allegations of corruption in the sellout.

It also tried all other routine remedies — liberalisation of imports, full play for FIIs, opening up of services, deregulation of banking industry, elimination of budget deficits, reduction of bank rates and tax, curb on government spending, etc. Each of this worked as a temporary pain killer but failed to make any improvement. Prophetically for us, as the expected miracle failed, the slash in expenditure led to slower growth which again led to slower investment. As thousands of those who lost jobs come on streets and the failed entrepreneurs committing suicide, those whose advice it had followed decline to rescue it.

The bursting of the Enron myth should make us relearn many lessons. It tends to blast the image of the MNCs, corporates and their executives as perfect gentlemen and “wealth creators”. If this No. 7 of fortune 500 could perpetrate this kind of frauds — mass bribing of politicians in the USA and elsewhere — at every level and get things done through lobbying and outright deceit, how can we blindly trust the fairness and efficiency of other MNCs? This biggest, business scandal in history has left scars on the entire spectrum of the Bush administration. Even those like Prince Charles of the UK.

This high profile MNC could change government decisions in its favour, get deregulation done for its profit and appoint its own nominees at crucial government posts. Even after its collapse, the Bush aides continue to openly
armsv twist India for a favourable settlement on the Dhabhol project. This much for the direct US interventions to favour its MNCs and the letter’s hold on our rulers. The Enron scandal has also put the business rating agencies in spot. Hardly a few weeks before the collapse, they had given impressive ratings to the firm.

Another aspect that should throw doubts over the iconisation of MNCs and their executives has been their continuing nexus with the politician and the bureaucrat. We thought the use of MNCs by their governments for espionage and sabotage has ended with the cold war. But the recent episode in which Boeing company had allegedly planted bugging devices in an aircraft it specially made for the Chinese Prime Minister revives the old scares. True, both China and the USA did not pursue the controversy too far. But how can national governments trust the integrity of the MNCs when they are allowed participation in sensitive projects? All this poses serious challenges to the corporate-commanded globalisation.

Universal Hepatitis B vaccination is not cost-effective in India, says a study from the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies.

The budget requirement for this alone exceeds that for immunisation of all other diseases under the Expanded Programme on Immunisation put together, the report from NISTADS, an institute under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said.

Hepatitis B vaccination requires a total of three doses which costs Rs 600-900. So far around 90 countries have included it in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). But the developing countries are finding it difficult to do so because of high costs involved despite WHO’s recommendations, it said.

Although the entry of several private players in India have brought down the price of Hepatitis B vaccine to as low as Rs 120 for adult dose and Rs 90 for child, it may still add to the burden on the government to include it in UIP.

For instance, the total cost of six EPI vaccines (BCG, TT, DPT, DT, polio and measles) together is only Rs 70, whereas that of a single pediatric dose of Hepatitis B vaccine is a minimum of Rs 70.
PTI

Children don’t benefit much from early PC exposure

Children in the classroom should not be put in front of a computer too early, reports Arnod de Kemp, a European specialist in electronic publishing.

Between the ages of roughly four and seven years, children should start out with the traditional methods of learning to read and write, de Kamp reported during a recent bookseller’s convention in Neu-Isenburg, Germany.

The desire to read needs to be fostered at this age, de Kamp claims, and a computer is not helpful in this pursuit. Classroom PCs make sense only for older students, he says.

Students are understimulated by reading and learning at home and in schools. “Reading and writing are cultural techniques that need to be learned. We can only do this at certain ages,’’ de Kemp explains. This is why it is so difficult to teach reading and writing to adult illiterates, de Kemp argues.

“Computers don’t teach you to read. They serve as an interactive instrument, as an electronic toy,’’ he says.

Only in the third and fourth grades does it begin to make sense to have children perform tasks such as searching for targeted information on the Internet.

The computer euphoria that led to a number of computers-in-the-schools initiatives has cooled down, de Kemp feels. “We are experiencing a normalisation, a rediscovering of the traditional values.’’

Overcrowded classrooms and parents who do not spend enough time reading to their children are also contributing factors to poor reading scores on standardised tests, de Kamp points out.
DPA